Velvet Da Vinci Gallery, San Fran, CA, October 2010

Velvet Da Vinci Presents: THE PLASTIC SHOW. Celebrating the recent publication of 500 Plastic Jewelry Designs by Lark Books, Velvetda Vinci Gallery will be exhibiting US and international artists featured in the book. The exhibition runs from October 1-31, 2010, with an opening reception Friday, October 1 from 6-8 pm.

The GRASSIMESSE is organized by the GRASSI museum of Applied Art and takes place in the reconstructed Grassimuseum, an important building of the Art Decó period. Three exhibition rooms with a total of 1200 sqm provide space for 85 exhibitors. Leipzig is a city of a great fair tradition. In the 1920s the former director of the arts and crafts museum Leipzig, Richard Graul, founded a sales fair which later became known as the Grassimesse. Compared with the bigger Leipzig-fair, which offered mass-produced articles, the Grassimesse instisted on high quality. The former museum administration demanded a rigorous selection procedure of the artists. Therefore Grassimesse developed to a famous European stage for the craftspeople elite. Up until the last Grassimesse in 1956, more than 1500 craftsmen, designers, companies, art schools and artist’s associations from Germany, Austria and Scandinavia presented their wares to an international audience. Important participants for example artists from Bauhaus and Wiener Werkstätte were representative of the development of the applied arts between the 1920s and the beginning of the 1940s. Many of the exposed objects have become part of the museums collection as a kind of “archive of Modernity”.

With the theme "Full of Facets", we would like to address jewellery in all its diversity and richness. The symposium will be characterized by lectures by renounded jewellery artists and well-known designers who specialize in contemporary jewellery and/or serie-design. This year a few include: Peter Skubic, Beate Eismann, Ted Noten and Liesbeth den Besten. New materials, innovative concepts and techniques like 3D modeling, rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing will be discussed, as well as defining the term jewellery. The focus will be on jewellery as an importatnt, independent communication medium as the intersection of contemporary art, fashio and product design. The Program is internationally oriented with speakers from Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austia, thereby alumni students from academies throughout Europe will lecture about their works. According to tradition, everyone can present their work on the jewellery table.

This upcoming exhibition is being held jointly at the Italian Embassy and the Lorber Gallery in Tel Aviv. It is in association also with the Italian Institute of Culture and Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Tel Aviv.

TALENTE, Munich, Germany, March 2009

TALENTE is a showcase and competition for newcomers under thirty who work in the fields of design and technology and craft. In existence since 1980 and held annually as part of the International Trade Fair for the Skilled Trades in Munich, Germany; Talente is one of Europe’s most prestigious showcases for emerging talent in the areas of design and technology and craft. Since 1979 the organisers have collaborated with training institutions, academies, universities and arts and crafts organisations throughout the world, who put forward their nation's best people for the competition. The world-wide network assures a unique view of trends and questions which concern young people in arts and crafts, making visitors aware of trends and currents, and of the coming generation of designer makers and inventors.

This year over 380 applications from 28 countries were received. Thirteen fields are represented, most prominently among them that of jewellery. The great interest shown by jewellery designers in Talente may well be due to the enormous importance of another special show, Schmuck, and Munich's status as a jewellery metropolis.

I was honored to win the Talente Prize in Jewellery this pastMarch

Inhorgenta Trade Fair, Munich, Germany, February 2009

Brand New New BrandThe newcomer forum "Brand New – New Brand", a presentation platform for graduates of national and international design institutes, and the Forum Innovation, where young jewelry designers and goldsmiths are invited to exhibit their creations, provide extensive opportunities for the young, up- and coming talents of tomorrow at the inhorgenta europe 2009. For the last ten years the trade show management has endorsed the next generation of jewelry designers with its inhorgenta europe Innovation Awards for extraordinary and groundbreaking jewelry design. The creations honored with this award, one of the industry's most 3 respected prizes since its inception, will be presented in a special exhibition at the "Designer's Avenue" in hall C2.